It’s Been A While
Headhunters
I recently had a member reach out and ask if we were still active as he noticed the membership fee come out of his bank account. That email caused me to reflect on the fact that I hadn’t provided an update or an article in quite some time. As a matter of fact, it’s been almost a year since our last update and that was to announce some bad news; the deactivation of the 80th FS at Kunsan. Hopefully this message has a bit more good news, or at least the potential for some.
In February of this year I took a break from my normal airline schedule to work a military contract on the RoK. As a part of that trip I drove to Kunsan to meet up with an old friend who happened to be Viper (the Ops Group Commander). During the visit we toured the ghost town of a building that the 80FS used to be in search of any historical artifacts that might have been left behind. I was mostly concerned about preserving the name tags and pictures that were on the wall in the bar dating back to the early 90’s. During the discussion he mentioned that I might want to hold off because there was a rumor running around that Kunsan might re-open in late ‘26 early ‘27. Well it looks like that was fortuitous, as personnel have just started returning. For the time being it looks like just the 35FS will be active initially, but the rumor of the 80th returning is still alive!
Switching gears, we regularly get emails asking for information on former 80FS members. Scar and I do our best to respond and look into the requests; often time for family members. The latest request was from a woman looking for information on her father William Otto Hinrichs Jr. Her father disappeared over the Sea of Japan in 1960 while flying an F-100. So far Scar and I haven’t been able to dig much up, but we still have some old archives to go through. It’s unfortunate that our search often times comes up empty, but we do our best to comb the records that we have to provide the families with info.
Another interesting email I received recently was from Stephen Kirby, the son of our WWII hero Marion Franklin Kirby II. He was interested in donating to the Headhunters and informed me about a book written about his father “Kirby: Memoirs of a Combat Fighter Pilot During the Early Years of WWII” written by Dr. Larry Simpson. He also has a website set up with his father’s biography www.stephenbkirby.com. I would encourage everyone to check out both the book and the website! Furthermore it was obvious that we need more than one way to donate to the organization so I created a Venmo if you are so inclined.
In closing, thank you Smat for the callout. You are right I do need to be more diligent with updates, even when there is no real good news to pass. I hope to have words in the next few months on some reunion plans; it’s time.
WiG
Lt. Col (ret) Bryan “Cage” Zumbro
HH01